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I have a concept.
Let's say the govt takes all this human interaction data, records all communications, feeds it into a super computer. The software to mine this data will become increasingly smarter, and able to find the correct data. The super computer will become able to understand human interactions, and communications.. the way we do.
The current trend in systems, is to design computers that can think on its feet. You give it a problem, and it finds a away to the answer. This brings us ever closer to a thinking machine. What would the result be of a machine that thinks, and has access to communications of everyone ? Would it become disgusted, or would it become en-lighted by this ? Will thinking machines happy so slowly we wont notice, neither will the govt notice its super computer is hapy, or mad at the human race. Just think a .. thinking machine that processes a countries worth of information on lives, deaths , and the human condition ? Would the super computer be evil, or good ? next up.. SKYNET ? |
This alone, no. But when you know someone might be listeningm, you will always think twice before you speak your mind and thus might not actual share you full opnion. Lets not forget that this isn't the only surveillance legislations goverments have / tried to get approved, it all piles up into more control over the people. |
I believe civic hacking is justified if it brings violent criminals to justice that would otherwise be overlooked by a corrupt and conniving local police force who refuse to do their job, as it was in this particular case.
I don't think that a media organisation hacking the phone of a murdered child in order of glean some gossip is justified when there is an ongoing police investigation where intervention including deleting messages by an external party is causing harm, and might give a false indication to the parents, that their child might still be alive. |
Except that It just adds yet another device we need to remember to charge each night. Even if it is minimal effort, it's already pointless when Google Glass is coming soon. AND there's the fact that it makes any alarm functions the watch may have, almost completely useless and redundant to your phone's clock app.
People like Google and Samsung can't seem to admit that a small startup like Pebble got it right the first time. Trying to stuff an full color LCD screen into a watch, doesn't work for practicality nor battery life, no matter how pretty it is.
I want my smartwatch to be a smartWATCH. Not a tiny phone on my wrist that I have to charge every night IN ADDITION to my tablet and phone. |
If the end up collaborating with Casio G-shock, I'd be inclined to purchase one. |
a good analogy i've found is sending mail.
how's the internet work
imagine you are a mailman, you get a letter addressed from foo from bar. you know all the names of people in your town and you don't know a bar, so you contact the big book o' names and you find that bar is at 123 anywhere street, sometown indiana 12345 and you are in othertown pa so you send it along to the state office which sees it's destined for a different state so they send it to the federal office, the federal office sees it goes to IN so they send it to the IN office which sees it goes to sometown so they send it to the sometown office, which sees it goes to 123 anywhere street so they send it to it's destination.
this is how the internet works currently, i send a packet to google.com, my system looks at it's host file to see if i have an IP for that, if not it goes to the DNS and asks if IT has a record for that, if the DNS server doesn't have one it asks it's DNS server and so on up to the root. once one of them gets an IP it sends back an answer and the DNS server sends back to the program sending the packet and it puts an IP address (in this case 74.125.225.102) so the program sends the packet, the local OS sees if it has any routing rules for that address (this basically mean it checks if it knows where that needs to go) if so it sends it there directly, if not it sends it to your default gateway (usually your router or modem) the default gateway checks it's routing table to see if it know what to do with this ip, if not it sends it up the ladder.
usually IPs are assigned in blocks to different people, makes things simple. so google there has the ip 74.125.225.102 and his ip block range is 74.125.0.0 - 74.125.255.255 there will be a DNS who handles that first byte the 74, giving that out to a group who when hand out the 125 range to google, who can then hand out the bytes below it to others. so i only need look at the first byte to know if i need to pass this up the ladder. in practice a netmask is used (but you needn't worry much about that)
what's happening
so you have that nice system each member pulls his weight, passes along stuff without bias and packets get where they need to go and everyone is happy...well not everyone. people with a vested interest in having some packets NOT go where they need to be, people who want to be able to read all those packets, in a word: governments.
the icann hands out those addresses in nice neat blocks and the ISPs follow this when making their routing tables because why not? someone has to make sure these people are who they say they are and if it's not me i'm happy. because the chink in the armour of this system is that it depends on all parties agreeing to the blocks the ICANN set out. so we don't have an ISP in the US and an ISP in the UK giving the same ip block to different people (so all the people in the UK go to one place and the people in the US to another) and the ISPs usually follow the ICANN because they don't wanna dick with it. i don't know if a guy in zimbabwe has a claim to the 123.0.0.0 block and i don't care.
unfortunately government officials learned just enough about the internet to be dangerous. they learned that they could just pass a law that says all ISPs must refuse to route certain addresses or allow DNS lookups on certain addresses. and ISPs, if they wanted to keep doing legal business, must abide that. and like a kid in a candy store they went to work blocking everything the copyright industry asked, anything they didn't like, just whatever really.
what is this article going on about
so recently there has been a lot of people pissed at the US and resentful for anything the US has to do in regard to the internet. they want the authority of the board they have been ignoring to be vested in an international body they can ignore. not because it's better for anyone but because fuck america.
and that is where we are |
This title is click bait. If the source is credible (can't verify because paywall), he got the information from internal financial statements. Those would only show direct revenues (money from ad sales) and those alone are profitable/in the black according to the source. The indirect revenues Google realizes from youtube's operation aren't quantifiable and certainly won't show up on any income statement, so we don't know exactly how much of a positive economic impact youtube has on Google in total. Google probably uses Youtube's meta data to enhance its other products, and you can't count how many google searches were conducted as a result of watching a youtube video; these are examples of indirect revenues which make Youtube more valuable in ways that can't be quantified. If the source is accurate, though, Youtube is directly profitable on its own.
Also, Youtube falling short of revenue projections is mostly meaningless. Companies like to demonstrate growing revenue numbers year after year to demonstrate business growth and health. Youtube is owned by Google, however, and therefore its revenues are consolidated into Google's financial statements. Google's financial data is certainly on the rise year over year. Other than short term traders looking to make a relatively quick dollar, I doubt this news will dissuade many potential Google investors. |
My motorcycle insurance company got sued by the state for illegally forcing riders to pay for a full year of insurance, when in my state (MA) you can pay just for months you want. Cause who needs or insured the middle of winter.. So the insurance Co ripped me off for $500 the state sued them, they insurance Co. Sent me a check for $20.. |
And do what use the other good guys option? Google fiber and municipality fiber is only in a few places, and all our old options of mobile service has been consolidated between 2 big and 2 smaller companies.
Only way to harm them is by not using internet or mobile services, and then all that will do is hinder our overall economics. |
The inconsistency of a set of propositions does not inherently imply the negation of those propositions. Although we might be able to prove the inherent incompleteness and/or inconsistency of special relativity, this does not entirely preclude the possibility that the speed of light is the fastest possible speed. So you are likely correct in saying that we cannot mathematically prove the speed of light to be the fastest speed achievable, but wrong in claiming that the law is necessarily incomplete or false.
Instead, we rely on experimental data and "working" theories, which, though incomplete or inconsistent, have predictive validity (usefulness in helping to describe natural phenomena as completely as possible and predict future events). Thus far, these "working" theories (which may also be described as an incomplete model of a true mathematical model) tell us that the upper limit in our universe is the speed of light. So no, we cannot prove this logically or say it with mathematical certainty, but the same can be said for any proposition defined within special relativity. The only option we have, save from abandoning the pursuit of knowledge, is to attempt to further refine existing speculations on the true nature of the universe from the information which we can derive from it.
This discussion extends into philosophy and theoretical physics, where often there are inherently no certainties. However, in the realm of "everyday" science, we can fairly safely close this branch of discourse and wait for useful information to trickle back from those who are capable of producing it. |
You would not experience time dilation in that way because that only happens when you approach the speed of light, which you would not be doing in this case, not even remotely close.
Picture a thin long racing track 1 light year across but in the first meter there is a shortcut that loops immediately back to the beginning. While light that isn't taking that shortcut is going to be way faster than you, it has to take a further route so it takes longer, but you can take your sweet ass time (up to a year in this example) to travel your 2m circuit and still beat it to it's destination.
The light is travelling orders of magnitude faster than you are, but the distance you have to travel is orders of magnitude less than the light's path.
Time dilation, of the kind where upon returning home you've travelled forward in time by years, only occurs for objects travelling relatively close to the speed of light. In this case, you aren't travelling even remotely close to that, you just have a much much shorter distance to travel. Time dilation shouldn't come in to play as far as I understand it (I'm not a physicist though, just an enthusiast).
It's worth noting that any light that takes the same shortcut as you will beat you to the destination the same as it would in any normal race, because your speed isn't changing here, it's that you've found a shortcut. |
I'm sorry to disappoint you. Event Horizon is an American horror scifi film in which an F |
Two things:
Your argument is flawed. What is considered 'acceptable' depends on the depths of human understanding about a subject; as our understanding of a thing changes, so too does its 'acceptability'. For example, asbestos was once acceptable, because we didn't know enough about it to know that it was harmful; as our understanding grew, it became unacceptable. Human history is littered with such examples.
I'm not arguing that old computers are unacceptable. I am saying that they waste electricity (= money) and that from a purely selfish point of view, you ought not to use them. There have been a huge swath of improvements in motherboard and processor design since 1990, almost all of which improve the efficiency of the machine, which saves you money in the long run.
Again, if you have some sort of sentimental attachment to the machine, that's fine. I have a bunch of machines that, for whatever reason, I can't bear to throw out -- but I don't leave them powered on and use them as file servers, either. |
I'll never have Comcast ever again. A while back, I had heard that Qwest had a really good price so I checked it out. I found out that they would give me 12 Mbps for what Comcast was charging me. I wasn't sure what speed I was getting from Comcast so I called. The guy told me i was getting 3.5 mega bytes per second. When I told him that he must mean mega bits he asked me to clarify the difference between bits and bytes. When I did, he told me that "Comcast provided the best service around and that he had no doubt a ridiculously fast speed was correct." When I told him that there was no way he was right he told me he believed it was an issue of "Tomato, Tomahto". I informed him that there was no such room for interpretation and that he was off by exactly eight times. He suggested we agree to disagree. I swore my blood oath. |
Google does NOT indemnify users against patent claims from third parties.
I never said they did. The point I was making is that MPEG-LA doesn't either, they only cover patents owned by their members. If I have the choice between a free technology with potential patent challenges and a costly technology with potential patent challenges, I'll take the former.
> Google is NOT going to be able to just simply acquire patents that cause conflicts.
Nor is MPEG-LA. There is no guarantee that patent challenges won't arise that will prevent MPEG-LA from licensing one of the technologies covered by their patent pool.
> There is evidence that VP8 is specifically infringing on H.264 patents.
I've heard this claim, but I haven't seen anything specific to support it. I could believe that there may be some low-profile submarine patents that Google missed, but I expect Google has thoroughly scoured MPEG-LA patents to make sure VP8 isn't infringing before making such assurances.
> MPEG-LA are REQUIRED to defend their patents.
I believe that, but as said I doubt your claims that VP8 is in violation of MPEG-LA patents, so I doubt it is particularly relevant.
> Steve Jobs has stated that MPEG-LA are assembling a patent pool right now to go after WebM.
Citation? I've heard him say patent pools are being assembled regarding Ogg Theora, but I haven't seen any response from apple regarding WebM. |
Well, some of it is accurate. You will pay more for upgraded hardware/software that you buy from Apple than if you did the upgrades yourself. However, memory/HD/Software upgrades are profit centers for all computer makers. If you don't have the ability to put in more RAM, a hard disk, or install software, they'll be happy to do it for a price.
I've had several desktop and laptop Macs, I'd rate their hardware and customer service a lot higher than DELL or Gateway. If you're looking for the cheapest machine, then I suspect you wouldn't be looking at Apple to start with.
Macs, especially the towers they're talking about, are by no stretch 'Hard to upgrade.' Everything is easy to access, much easier than your average PC. If you're talking iMacs and Mac minis, those can be more complex, but the example in the picture is of a tower.
Another issue, they say 'obsolete in a few years.' I've had my Mac Pro since 2006. I've upgraded the RAM and video card. I've added another HD. It is still going strong as my primary computer, so I'm not sure what their criteria for 'obsolete' is.
Lastly, they trivialize how easy it is to get OSX running on non-Apple hardware. A Hackintosh might be a good fit for you if:
You enjoy tinkering a lot to try to get your computer working
You don't mind waiting days/weeks/months for people to figure out how to hack the latest software updates.
You can accept your computer might not be functional because of unexpected glitches and such. |
There are pieces of truth and lies in this, mostly not looking at anything benefit other than the upfront options, part of what is being paid for in the ram is to get more ram in less space, there for leaving more slots to upgrade later.
At the end it says Macs are hard to upgrade, he is looking at a Mac pro, the ONLY mac designed to be upgradable.
Yes Mac is a brand name and a hunk of what you are paying for is the name, the name gets you a more reliable, better supported, and better tested piece of hardware as well as an OS that has drivers for all built in hardware coded into the OS.
If you were to go out and build this computer on your own it would be cheaper, but then you couldn't call make as make them fix it when it breaks, or buy a warranty to get it fixed if it breaks.
Edit: Also Mac PROs are NOT a consumer targeted PC, they are intended for high end computer use/business use, easily upgradable into servers of one kind or another.
Price a normal Mac against a PC and the number are much closer. |
I agree with the sentiment and substance behind this, but there is an important distinction that needs to be made
Newegg caters to the do-it-yourself group, who buys their components seperately and builds their own computers. They obviously wholesale, and therefor get the best prices on the internet. This is very different then Apple, who creates a complete package in a one-stop fashion.
Think about buying a new BMW vs buying a old Integra and modifying it to race. With the Integra, the parts are cheaper, and you can probably go faster, but you're buying separate components, building it yourself, doing all your own repairs. Where as the BMW owner spent more and doesn't get the flexibility or cool extra parts, but has the ease of mind of knowing there's a shop they can go to. |
I was curious/confused too, so I cracked the example on the [wiki page]( I'll just write up my example here. I used wolfram alpha because I'm lazy and couldn't find any paper.
Relevant matrices:
A B C
1 6 2 3 1 2 0 15 11
6 3 8 10 3 7 0 16 3
2 8 2 11 15 9 6 5 10
So the A matrix is the master matrix, the B matrix is the randomly (I guess? you just have to make sure you can't make one of columns with any combination of the other columns (I THINK, my intuition says they should be linearly independent, but I don't have a proof or anything)) generated public keys put together in columns. The last column (2, 7, 9) was completely made up by me by the way. The C matrix are the secret keys stored, and is created via the randomly generated B matrix and the master matrix A:
C = A*B mod 17
For the mathematically uninitiated, I'll just add here that modulo is an operator that takes a number, divides by another number (the modulus), and outputs the remainder. So 5 mod 3 = 2, because 5/3 = 1 remainder 2. One more 90 mod 17 = 5 because 90/17 = 5.29411...or 5 remainder 5. Negative numbers denote going backwards in the cycle, so -5 mod 12 = 7, because 12 - 5 = 7. One more note for reluctant mathematicians: there is no division in matrix arithmetic, only multiplication. In order to "divide" we have to multiply by the inverse. A small example:
X = Y*Z
Y = X*(Z^-1)
Where Z^-1 denotes the inverse of Z.
K, back to fucking over DRM.
As the user, we will not know A, but we can find out B because it is public, and C through some nefarious means (in HDCP, I guess this would involve memory dumps, and searching through the RAM for the secret key). So to get back A, we can find the inverse of C with respect to the original modulus used. In this case, the modulo is 17. So we now have:
C = A*B
A = B*[C^-1 mod 17] mod 17
We gotta keep the modulos goin. Aight home stretch now, we just need to figure out the inverse of C with respect to modulo 17.
[Here's]( the inverse of C. Now, 1/13 is 4 in modulo 17. So [we can plug all that back into wolfram]( and get some results:
4*13*C^-1 = D D mod 17
312 -84 -4 6 1 13
52 -20 4 1 14 4
-468 136 4 8 0 4
Wolfram seemed to hang when I tried applying the modulo after taking the inverse and getting rid of everything, so I did it by hand. Result is in the right matrix. (ninja edit: nevermind, it got it right, I just read the output incorrectly. The link above now does modulo as well and produces the matrix on the right.)
So now we are ready to get back to the master matrix. We just have to perform the following:
A = B*D mod 17
Which I've plugged into wolfram [here.](
Anyway the result from wolfram is:
1 6 2
6 3 8
2 8 2
Which was our original A matrix! Success! (Note that with this A matrix, we can create new legitimate secret keys for new people in the group so they can make encrypted messages and shit)
Err I have a tendency to over explain I guess :P. But the same process should work to crack HDCP. Some diligent people went through and did a memory dump or crawled the RAM of each system looking for the private keys made at evil HDCP headquarters, and then took every key and put them in a matrix just like we did. Then you take the matrix of private keys that you have, find its modular inverse and then take the matrix of public keys and do:
([matrix of public keys]*[modular inverse of matrix of private keys]) mod [the modulus] = [master key]
Another edit: the modulo should be 2, since the master key came out as 56 bit binary numbers. So it's 56 1s and 0s in some order, 40 by 40 times.
In order to fill every column of the master key you need to have as many private keys as there were columns in the master matrix. So the HDCP evil master matrix was apparently 40x40, so 40 keys were needed I suppose. Since we have the master matrix, we can now add new legitimate secret keys! So anyone can now create an HDCP compliant device because the master matrix has been cracked. With this matrix, you can also figure out what is happening in the actual cable, and decrypt it by creating an HDCP compliant device on the other end that will decrypt it. This is pretty easy to do with software once you got the master matrix which does all the encryption.
Disclaimer: I'm pretty shit at math and just figured all this out cause I thought it was interesting. I could be completely wrong, and this might not be the way they cracked HDCP at all! I just went off of the top post in this whole thread. Feel free to correct whatever I might have wrong lol :P |
This is a good point. It would do a lot more for the electric car industry if the government saved money by not propping up undeserving companies like GM. |
Actually, for a long time Netflix ran a division call "Red Envelope Entertainment," which produced films like Sherry Baby, Zach Galianakis Live at the Purple Onion, and the outstanding documentaries No End in Sight and This Film is not Yet Rated. Their business model seemed, to me, to be provide funding for the people who know what they are doing. They only shuttered in 2008 due to Netflix deciding it was counterintuitive to compete with the studios who provide them content. |
I was pointing out that the article's argumentation is not valid in part due to it being of an invalid form. Your argument, too, is not of a valid form. There's a difference between non-truth-evaluable rhetoric and formal argumentation, though. Though I have not listed my arguments in a simplified form, if you were to deconstruct them, you would find them to be valid. I have taken a couple courses on formal logic at the postsecondary level and have a pretty sound understanding of the concept of validity and how to form a valid argument and I agree with the definition that I quoted from wikipedia otherwise I wouldn't have quoted it. (Incidentally there are many similar definitions for validity you might find in a logic textbook, one is simply that: "An argument is valid only if it is the case that if all the premises of the argument are true, it is impossible for the conclusion to be false." Your argument does not fit this requirement.)
Edit:
> |
The author's problems with Bitcoin:
1) Seeding initial wealth. Meh.
2) Built-in deflation. I see that as a good thing.
3) Lack of convertibility. If there's a market, there's a market. If there's not a market, no government can save it's own currency in the long run.
4) When something goes wrong, it will die. Probably, and then prices will adjust and life will go on. Markets handle this much better than governments. |
You know not everything needs to be written to the satisfactory of your highschool english teacher. In fact your highschool English teacher is wrong about many things. The whole point of teaching you "writing rules" is just to explain how to make consistent styles that are pleasing for people to read. It isn't rulebook that eveyrone has to follow.
Youre entire argument is just based on you don't like the writing style, not that the writing style doesn't make sense, or that it can't be followed. it's that you still write like a 12th grader in highschool.
>Edit: Also, your attempt at being clever has failed as your argument is not strictly logically valid. Even if your premises 1,2 & 3 were all true, your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from your premises.
actually it does. I made an argument that lists can be used to support an argument. my argument (in list form) included 3 situations where lists can be used in arguments. It has nothing to do with "all of them being true" or an argument using lists for all 3 purposes at the same time. |
The big problem with bitcoin is that it is almost fundamentally valueless. I say almost because it has some value in the anonymity and P2P handling, which make it a fairly unique service. But, let's take a very quick comparison to, say, the US dollar.
The US dollar has a very important, very obvious feature: you must pay an US tax burden with them. Its the fundamental basis of the value of the US dollar - if you want to operate a steel mill in Virginia, you need to get US dollars from that steel in order to pay the taxes on that steel mill. And since your workers and suppliers also need US dollars to pay their taxes, well, you're going to need some more dollars.
It really doesn't matter if the steel gets exported, since the exported goods get traded for foreign currency, which then must get traded for dollars to pay operating costs. If you make a hundred tons of steel in the US, then you must acquire (gross - net) dollars with that steel. This ensures that if someone else has dollars and wants steel, they can get it. Or if they want apples, or automobiles, or whatever else gets made in America, they can get those too. |
Growing potatoes is not random, yet someone who works harder at growing potatoes will have more potatoes per season.
Flipping a coin is random. No matter how many times you flip it you will never get better at flipping a coin. Nor can you guarantee that you will ever get the outcome you want. It is entirely possible that a person who flips it 10000x could get fewer heads that someone who flips 10.
Randomness cannot be determined by gauging successful output compared to input. In random systems they are NOT concretely linked. They are probabilistically linked. So the more you do it, the more LIKELY you are to have better outcome.
Going back to your tickets example, person A buys 1 ticket person B buys 1000. While person B is more likely to win, person A could just as well be the only person to win the jackpot, yet he did not do much work at all. |
You are correct in the origin of (paper) money. For those who do not know, keep reading.
There did not used to be currency in the world. If you wanted to buy some rice and a cow, you would trade your wood carvings and nails for them. You wanted a new house? Sure, just pay the housemaker 12 horses. In this case, both parties agreed that the "cost" of a house equaled 12 horses. Simple.
After a while, people realized that carrying around 12 horses everytime you wanted to go to the market was a bad idea. You know what they did? They started banks.
Basically, a bank was anything that would store any goods for you. The local farmhouse might hold your 100 bushels of wheat, for a fee of course. However, you needed proof that owned 100 bushels of wheat. What the local farmhouse would do is issue you a "check". The check basically said that "Efeex currently has 100 bushels of wheat stored at our facility. Show this slip of paper to the farmhouse and you can withdraw them."
Which checks, life became easier. You could go to the market, agree on a price, and simply "sign over a check". Cross out your name, put the buyer's name, and bam, my 100 bushels of corn are now yours.
Many different objects have been used as currency. Checks evolved into paper money, as I will later explain. However, throughout history, different metals have been used as currency. Romans used salt (Hence the term "you aren't worth your wait in salt") as currency. The whole idea of currency revolves around the public accepting the "value" of it.
Gold-backed currency:
Since the early ages (Going down to the Ancient Egyptians, maybe even earlier), metals have been used as currency. Why metal? Metal is useful, rare, and durable. It can be crafted into weapons, jewelry, carriages, armor, etc. Metal had "value". Eventually, through trade, the value of metal was agreed upon.
Value: what everyone is willing to spend on it. I might be willing to work 2 hours on your farm for 1 pound of gold. I can then trade this bar of gold for a cow and some armor. Society agreed on the value of said coin. If I was a merchant, I would gladly accept your metal bar instead of 12 cows, simply because I believed that 1 gold bar is equal in value to 12 cows.
Emergence of Banks:
As a rich merchant, I do not want to carry all my 100 gold bars around all day. It was too risky with all the bandits and thiefs in the streets. However, there was a solution. Goldsmiths needed gold bars. Heck, ONLY goldsmiths could use gold bars. Everyone valued gold, but no one could really use it. The merchant needed to safely store his gold, and the goldsmith needed gold. An agreement is made.
The goldsmith would store the merchant’s gold bars. In return, the goldsmith would write a check, saying that Merchant X currently stored 100 gold bars at my location. Upon showing this check, the gold bars could be withdrawn.
Eventually, the goldsmith realized that out of the 100 gold bars the merchant had, only about 20 gold bars were really in circulation, in and out. The rest just kind of stood there in storage. The goldsmith then had a great idea. “Since the merchant only uses 20 gold bars, I can use the rest of the gold bars for profit. If I hold about 50 gold bars as reserve, I can probably handle all gold requests that are made. I then have a 30 excess gold bars I can use for profit.”
Goldsmith then decides to loan out gold bars. “I can loan you a gold bar. However, by Friday, you pay me back two gold bars. “ Eventually, the goldsmith makes enough profit that he can lend out gold without having to “gamble” any gold that isn’t his. However, he also realizes that the more money he loans out, the more money he makes from interest.
Eventually, the goldsmith becomes so powerful and known, that the checks he writes are replacing gold bars. You no longer have to go take out your gold bar from deposit in order to buy a cow. You can simply take a check and exchange it for the cow. Society trusts and believes that the check, a piece of paper, holds the same value as a gold bar. They can simply go to the goldsmith and exchange the check for a gold bar.
Checks eventually turn into paper money, dollars. For a while, the United State’s money reserve was wholly backed up by gold and silver. You could go and exchange a “dollar”, or a piece of paper that basically said that the United States of America would guarantee to exchange $1 worth of gold for a $1 bill. You could simply go into a USA Federal Reserve Bank and ask to exchange your dollar bill for your weight in gold or silver.
Of course, the USA currency is not currently backed 1:1 with gold and silver anymore. You can’t go to bank and request to exchange your $5 for gold. However, you can probably still find silver certificates in circulation. They look almost identical as dollar bills, with a slight color change. This piece of paper is a promise by the US Government to exchange the silver certificate for the value in silver. These used to be Silver Dollars (I do not know if modern silver dollars have a 1:1 exchange anymore. Meaning, I do not know if the price of silver has changed, so that the amount of silver in a silver dollar is equal to $1). |
Yes it has, intentionally and superficially.
That isn't even remotely correct. For the first 4 millenia it saw an exponential increase in production.
> That scenario isn't even close to true. The network does not allow any one person, or pool, 50% of the network.
It is entirely true. The network does not now allow this anymore, at the beginning though, this is exactly how it started. Blocks are granted at a fixed rate per day/year/whatever, correct?...
So, when there was only one person mining, i.e. when the network first started, he would've been getting as many blocks a day as every single user combined is getting now, correct?...
And as of 2013, the block generation rate decreases by half, doesn't it? Meaning that having started that in that first day, he'll have gotten what would've taken the entire network two days, if they pooled their resources, or what would take a single person several years, wouldn't he?
And there was a significant period like this, with only a few users, having more units distributed to them each day than any later users could ever hope to achieve in a lifetime, correct?
So, basically, if bitcoin catches on, by inventing a currency, he invents the idea that he is a multi-millionaire, so has an incentive to promote it, doesn't he?
And, likewise, for anyone else who joined on in these early days, they all have the potential to become millionaires if they can get people to buy into the idea of its value, correct?... They'll have gotten what nobody could ever hope to achieve in a lifetime in their time early-on as well.
But, this doesn't suddenly stop after a few days or a few months, there is a gradient to the wealth distribution such that if you got in in the first few years rather than the first few months, you still have an incentive to get later people to buy in, to devalue the currency and make your share worth more, don't you?
And this doesn't sound at all like a pyramid scheme to you?
If the guy who first started people to trade gold had started as the only preson who owned gold with millions of tons of gold, you wouldn't regard him with suspicion? |
It fit his |
People should have a right to know when their passwords or credit card info are all over the internet. Obviously companies also have a right to decide how they release information and when. But in this case I think the rights of the consumers are more important.
The "paints a target on you" argument is weak. Any significant service like Xbox Live or Gmail or Azure or PSN already has a massive target painted on it. But some of those services fall flat to security breaches and others hardly stumble. |
What about appeal for a more general audience? I'd like headphones that could add sound but not remove ambient noises. A way for my phone to ring only for me. A way for and audiobook to play only for me, but for me to still be able to hear around me. This seems like something a set of hearing aids would be perfect for, if they could pass on exactly what they 'hear' and be able to add some sounds in addition. |
Maybe, but we are a little stuck right now. I'm not to sure on all the technicalities, but our cpu/ram architectures blow. We could all have significantly faster computers but all of our programs only work on decades old architecture and if we upgraded every single program would have to be re-written from scratch. There might be a time when we move over, but it is incredibly costly and not happening any time soon. |
You can't understand it because you hate him
Sorry I put words in your mouth, but don't put words in mine.
>No man can blame another for his own moral judgements.
Maybe not as an individual, but as a public figure, they can.
>Just because he isn't perfect doesn't mean he needs to be condemned.
I really do get the point that you're making, but he's far from perfect.
I don't hate the guy. Let's make this clear. I'm all for forgiveness. What bothers me is that people are celebrity worshiping him, and they really shouldn't be. People shouldn't be praising many a people in the public eye, but they still do because they have a lot of monies. I don't want this man to receive public praise because I don't want a ton of people to go out and be like him.
I don't want it to be possible for anyone's children to look at Steve Jobs and say, "What an innovator. I want to be exactly like him." Like you, I feel that people need to understand that this man is just a person, and while you say that no man is perfect, that he should be given forgiveness, I say that he is a public figure and should undergo more scrutiny than a normal person.
Steve Jobs is a special case because he represents a class of people that aren't all that special, but are praised beyond belief. People who have money receive a certain respect that no one should have. I don't like it because even though this man did some pretty cool things, a responsible parent who no one knows about is more worthy of praise. A band director who allows children to enjoy music should be more looked up to than Steve Jobs.
I feel like when you say that people are condemning Steve Jobs, these folks are just realizing that he's a normal dude, and he really didn't do anything special. He was just a figurehead for a big corporation who liked the limelight. I don't think they actually condemn him as a person.
I hope I didn't upset you too much. This is a worthwhile discussion. |
I don't think McGuyver is a real person but correct me if I'm wrong as I've honestly only seen a couple episodes of the show or you could be referring to someone else.
I never said whether Steve Jobs was a good or bad role model, just that if we focus on having only paragons of virtue as our role models then our role model list is going to be limited to a whole 0 people. Hell, two of the biggest "role models" of people today are Gandhi and Mother Theresa and they did things MUCH more morally reprehensible than Steve Jobs.
Whether you like it or not, the man did what he wanted and lived his life the way he wanted, I think that's one reason people admire (not sure if that's the word I'm looking for) him. Who knows if he would have given up all his money and moved to Denmark next year had he not died, I just feel that beating this fuck Jobs horse has gotten a little tiring on reddit. People seem to have a quite the cognitive dissidence when starting threads like these and not realizing their zealotry for hating Steve Jobs rivals the passion of even the most devoted of the Apple fanboys. (Not saying you're bashing anyone, that was just meant as general disdain for this garbage on a technology subreddit) |
This is not true; Polis' statement has been misinterpreted as it lost its context.
GoDaddy is not specifically exempt, rather, it is exempt as part of a class of domestic registrars. Polis was not trying to call attention to the fact that GoDaddy had a specific exemption, but that domestic .com, .net, and .org registrars had an exemption--and he simply used GoDaddy as an example, as it is one of the largest registrars with the greatest name recognition. Polis was arguing for offering .edu registrars protections as well--he didn't understand why private companies were given these protections while universities were not.
My guess is that GoDaddy supports this because it offers the protection to domestic and not foreign registrars, and that is understandably a pretty nice advantage for them. But there's a very large difference between offering a specific company an exemption from legislation and offering the company the exemption along with all its domestic competitors.
That's not to imply there are no issues with the type of exemption, just that the issues are very different than they've been portrayed here and, actually, very often in the comment threads related to GoDaddy. To me, it's extremely important that this rumor of the GoDaddy-specific exemption is debunked. A very easy way to derail opposition against something is to have the group opposing it be misinformed about what they oppose. |
I don't see why they would exempt these websites based on their gTLDs when "The Pirate Bay" is located at thepiratebay .org . This seems antithetical to their overall outcome of relinquishing piracy from the Internet. The fact remains that they have rejected two amendments proposed by Polis (who is the only person at the hearings with any tech experience), both of which were suggesting to exempt universities and education systems (I believe there were others mentioned as well, can't remember). |
Anonymous, would soon have the capability "to bring about a limited power outage through a cyberattack,"
We know this because they stole our source code. <shrug> We were working on scapegoating Obama in October making and some incredible claims that his administration is not doing his job. Was a pretty good plan to get people to rally behind Romney.
How did it work? Well most of Mitt's buddies having enough influence that a little staged outage would be easy to arrange. Installing the trojans and forgetting to change the passwords wasn't that tough.
But now we have to worry about these EVIL people trying to expose us for our attempts at wagging the dog. Its unreal the lengths people will go to, to avoid mental slavery. |
I think Google+ is actually pretty smart.
Google knew it couldn't take everyone away from Facebook. What they didn't know is how its Gmail users were connected. Sure, it could see who people emailed most often but it didn't have a way of knowing who is related to who.
Enter Google+ where you say who's a friend, who's a family member, and who's an acquaintance. Even if you add people right when the service launched, it now has that data and knows who is connected to who. For Google, an unused service like Google+ probably costs very little to sustain--and it has given relationship data for 90M+ users.
Also, at a time when Google's own privacy policy has been reswizzled, I think Google+ was just a way to determine relationships between its users for relevant advertising.
For instance, if they know that a family member has a birthday coming up (data willingly entered into Google+), it may show ads for Twilight DVDs that they've searched recently. I'm not saying they do this, I'm just saying it's technically possible. |
Google+ is far from a deserted wasteland for me. It's my primary source of information (provided you follow the "right" people and pages) at the moment. Also, only my close friends and relatives uses Google+ actively which means A LOT LESS JUNK when compared to facebook. Hangouts itself is a good enough reason to convince anyone to use Google+ IMHO. |
What you said: I use the term "extremely lightly"
What you probably meant: I use the term extremely lightly
Not trying to be a dick; just trying to help educate :) |
I like to compare it to getting burritos and having the place call out the number on your receipt. Those numbers are handed out first-come first-serve and are used to route your data or burrito to you. Now each day someone else gets to be number 37, so if you only here a number you'll have a hard time stalking the hot girl with #37. If perhaps you also remembered the exact time (now was that last Tuesday or last Wednesday...) the store may have the receipt left over with some juicy credit card info. What if it was actually her big tough-guy boyfriend who paid? Now you're really got the wrong #37. Or perhaps #37 is not such a nice lady after all and swapped her lame vegetarian burrito for some poor kids sweet sweet halibut. Now you've really tracked down the wrong #37. |
The reason you have that is compatibility, so they can still support the complex instructions of x86-64. If anything, its an example of why RISC is the way to go, at least in terms of building an efficient pipeline. |
anyone got a |
I thought the article was really interesting and it makes some really valid points about handset manufacturer vs. carrier relationships, but when it starts to get into the whole "carriers shouldn't try to monetize their infrastructure, let's make wireless data as close to free as humanly possible" argument, that just seems wrong to me.
Don't get me wrong - I want my wireless data costs to be as low as possible just as much as anyone else. But there seems to be some things that make it worth paying a reasonable rate for:
1) If ATT and VZ make no money on it whatsoever, then they have no incentive to stay in the business. This means either the government becomes your sole telecommunications provider, or you have no telecommunications provider. Sure, we can talk about what amount of profit margin is appropriate, but they do have to make some money in order to encourage them to continue to operate these networks.
2) It takes money to maintain infrastructure. You have to pay for the parts to fix it, and you have to pay for the people to do the fixing. ATT and VZ are among the largest employers of union labor in the United States, and that labor (especially with healthcare cost considerations) isn't getting cheaper. So if we want to pay less money, then do we want to reduce this union labor force (and elongate repair times), or do we want ATT and VZ to play hardball and cut their benefits? The answer can't be "neither, take it all out of the telcos' profits"; see #1 above.
3) Spectrum, as the Verge article admits, is a limited resource. The rate of mobile bandwidth consumption is accelerating much faster than that bandwidth can be deployed, and there's a hard cap on how much bandwidth can be supported - when we run out of spectrum, that's it. So we either need new technology that makes more efficient use of existing spectrum (guess who needs money to spend on that R&D?) or we need more of the finite spectrum freed up for mobile broadband use.
4) Although this is the justification I have the least sympathy for, what we're actually experiencing now with data rates going up is a price correction in the marketplace. The telcos got caught with their pants down in terms of not recognizing and adjusting to the technological/behavioral changes in the mobile market fast enough. What I mean by this is that in the beginning, when mobile data was little more than a novelty, the money you paid for your voice plan was subsidizing your data usage - the telcos lost money on data but then made it back on your voice bundle. This "loss leader" strategy was to encourage people to buy/use more services. However, over time (and really accelerated by the introduction of the iPhone and mobile Skype), usage started to flip - people used their mobile devices more for data than for voice. ATT and VZ didn't respond fast enough, and kept data prices artificially low through voice plan subsidies, which people elected to stop paying by downgrading to the fewest possible minutes they could get on their device. Now when we see data costs go up, this is actually the telcos catching up with today's reality - they are being coupled with decreases in the cost of voice minutes to the point where data rates pay to keep the network up and running and subsidize the voice costs instead of vice versa.
This will probably be downvoted as "corporatist propaganda" or whatever, but at some point we have to recognize that just because we like something - network access, movies, music, tv, etc. - doesn't mean it should be free... |
The Palm/Verizon thing wouldn't have been such a mess if there were federal (or IEEE. Take your pick) standards for network type and network interface method.
For example:
Having all carriers use replaceable sim cards so you can take your phone with you between carriers; similar to how you can take your phone number. The public would then be able to buy devices at fair prices and use them on the service of their choosing.
Make data lines (coax, fiber, whatever) and towers public property (maybe managed by a nonprofit) similar to streets and waterways. This prevents a ISPs from monopolizing areas by being the first to run lines.
How can we (the public) get a process of change started?
Go to our representative? They'll simply blow us off and do whatever makes their corporate backers happy.
We The People petition? At best it's nothing more than a measurement of the general desires of the public. Anything significant will be ignored.
Protests? Useless. Just look at OWS.
What? Do we have to start killing off Telco execs till they stop fucking us like cheap thai hookers?
Sorry, the whole thing agitates the hell out of me. |
With Kinect, at least, they've made it a must-have for anyone who uses their 360 as a media center. Watching any of their video services can be an entirely controller-free experience, which is nice. Words can't express how much I hated having to turn my controller on (and wait for it to sync up) to pause a movie when I got a phone call. The game implementation has been sorely lacking... Except for Dance Central, there aren't any great games, and there are about 0 that have had advertising support from MS. Now and again they'll give away a free arcade game for Kinect, but they've really dropped the ball on third party support. I'm hopeful Kinect for Skyrim will change that, though.
Plus, you get to feel like Jean-Luc Picard. Really, the cool factor is worth the price of admission (especially around the holidays, when you can find units for $100 with three included games). The voice controls while watching videos are as close to "computer.... on screen" as I'm likely to get in my lifetime.
Well, that ended up seriously OT... |
I begrudgingly agree with most of what you said, only because I know you begrudgingly brought it to light. ;-)
However, I have to disagree when you say we can't affect their profit and say that takes us straight to cutting labor or benefits. Here's the thing; (And this is purely just what I see as an ideal situation) they are using spectrum owned by us. That means, just as corporations were originally intended, it should be used at our benefit. I believe that this should most definitely mean that we get to set the amount of profit any company gets to make off it. If they (ATT, Verzion, Sprint) don't like it, there will be other companies that will.
Just as you said though, I don't begrudge them their profits, by any means, I am just sick of seeing corporations utilizing, what is suppose to be, our public resources to fuck us with, ya know? |
While well written, the topics discussed in this article are in themselves somewhat dated and the author doesn't provide us with the information we need to understand how to resolve the problem. To really get a handle on how the major US carriers and consumers interact, ironically, you have to go back a few years to look at the technology that was being discussed. Prior to the launch of the I-phone, there was heavy discussion in the telecommunications industry about attaining 4G technology, and finally in 2008, the International Telecommunications Union-Radio communications sector (ITUR-R) specified a set 4G standards, known today as the “International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced”.
[Those standards did a number of things like:](
Setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 megabits per second if the device was in motion, such as a car.
Setting peak seed requirements to 1 gigabit per second for low mobility, such as sitting in your office.
Neat Huh? Not even close!
The best part was that all devices connected to the network, should have seamless connectivity to any 4G network, and be able to seamlessly change (or handoff) between one network and the next. As it was in 2008, carriers today each have networks that are unique. This is why it’s impossible to take a Verizon phone and use it on ATT, but not an ATT and use it on T-Mobile.
As far as the 4G that would seamlessly allow you to stream porn and pirate Game of Thrones we were promised - all we got instead was a coy marketing tick. The 4G we know today (The one the carriers have imprinted on your brain from countless advertising sources) stands for “Fourth Generation” and is in reference to the number of times the wireless carrier’s technology has been updated - which has absolutely nothing to do with the ITUR-R.
That being said; the thing that consumers missed out on most was the network standards. Imagine a world where taking your laptop over to a friends house for a LAN party was impossible, because your wireless card wasn’t supported by your friends Internet Service Provider. That’s exactly where we are now; but happily consumers are starting to push back! Gone completely are the days of “No Contract / No Service.” Each of the major carriers offers Month-to-month subscriptions plans with generous talk, text and data usage.
Unfortunately users today want phones that are admittedly expensive to manufacture, because each one must meet the unique network requirements of the carriers. Now, before we go any further, I want to point this out. If you get a $600.00 product for $100.00 because you’re impatient and you “Had” to have it, don’t complain because you’re locked into a contract. In essence, getting a phone under contract is the same as buying a car or a home, or a TV. Unless you save up and buy it outright, you’re borrowing money to purchase a product and while in other cases you pay interest, in this you’re committing to stay with a carrier.
That being said, people do have the choice now to purchase a phone outright from a manufacturer, and activate it on another carrier, and in essence that’s how we should continue to progress. The reality is we will be in the back pocket of the wireless industry until we are able to convince the Government to implement a unified network standard. Once we accomplish this, manufacturers will then be able to make phones that work across all carriers, and although painful at first: we can spend a little more money upfront to buy from the manufacturer, then activate on our network of choice. |
If your post smacks of "corporatist propaganda", it's because you completely fail to use any numbers to back your argument. Hell, I found that Verizon has an average post-tax profit margin of 6.5% in a single search, on the first page. So yes, costs are high, but are those costs being spent well? Is the marketing effective or annoying? Are those high-cost CEOs , consultants , prime-time TV spots useful areas to spend revenue or are they just budgeted into the overall books? Let's look at one area which could be entirely eliminated simply due the advent of the electronic hardware / software standards and the Internet.
If you're renewing a contract at a retail store, that store gets a commission for every contract they sign up. It's a penance right? Something tiny that they pay their costs for in volume? Wrong.
It's a massive, low-cost industry which doubles-down on profit in accessories. Costs on one hand are salespeople (who'll work often for minimum wage plus a cut of commission), rent, products, licensing (govt/carriers), and shipments (often in that order from largest to least) all of which vary due to location. Profits, on the other hand, are provider(carrier) commissions which can range from $10 an option (e.g. text messaging, insurance, email) up to $400 for a new two year plan. They may get "charge-backs" on this commission if you cancel your agreement in less than 180 days, but often you've signed a contract stipulating a forfeiture of $200+ after 30 days or less. On average, the first three to four months of a two year plan goes directly to the retailer ( example : $30/mo plan, $90-120 provider commission; $100/mo plan, $300-400 provider commission ), this includes both of your example providers ATT and VZ. If you order the plan online, you don't get any savings, the provider just pockets the savings of not having to deal with commissions at all. Accessories are often purchased in bulk from manufacturers and drop shipped directly to the store to be sold. Specialized or vendor-specific equipment (e.g. JABRA Jawbone) may have as little as 10% margin, generic equipment (e.g. earbuds, cases, chargers, screen protectors) may have a whopping 500% margin (or more), averaging out around 200% across stocked product lines.
Before you defend these retailers as having their own right to capitalize on their investments, remember that customers don't get the option of choosing a "commission free" plan or provider, as even prepaid wireless plans have a commission attached to them. |
So, let me get this straight. The folks in rural SC have no Internet access because the big boys won't lay cable out there since it is a poor, rural area and they see no money to be made. So rural town gets a grant to lay their own cable and create their own network. The big boys spend $150,000 lobbying to stop it from happening.
That's what I just read, right?
I've hated both Comcast and AT&T for many years now for my own reasons, but I've just moved up to a whole new level of hatred and added some names to my list.
Can anyone explain to me why the big boys feel the need to stop the building of networks in areas they have been ignoring for years now and probably plan to continue ignoring? |
Google doesn't need to care about maintaining control of Android. All they care about is getting people to perform more Google searches, so that they can display more Google ads. If people start doing tons of google searches on iPhones, Google wins. If people do tons of google searches on Android phones, Google wins. If carriers lock down Android and throw it into a toilet, but the marketshare is high and people do tons of google searches, guess what? Google wins. |
Alright, so we both see the problem where some consumers aren't educated in what they're buying (shocker).
There are 2 ways to fix this:
Cater to the consumers and change a global standard that has been in place for 20 -ish years. This would require a new standard just for consumers and either a complete overhaul of the current standard or some kind of translation system to translate between the old and the new. This would be very expensive, time consuming, and can potentially cause more network downtime than it's worth. Also, there is no way of telling if consumers in the future will simply become more ignorant and force us to go through this again.
Educate the consumers on the difference and give accurate expectations and references for D/L speeds. This would not only fix our problem, it will also help the ISPs keep costs lower by not having to support so many unnecessary support calls (I worked in an ISP call center, it wasn't fun). |
For a brain you fucking suck at arguing a point. Here, I'll demonstrate.
Google is interested in personal data for targeted advertising. Nothing more, nothing less. For torrenting to be "more risky" over a Google internet connection would imply that they have some deliberately nefarious intent for your data, which they haven't demonstrated. In this specific context of torrenting, they would have had to display some intent to collect and hand over data to either law enforcement or anti-piracy groups looking to file law suits, neither of which you can cite any examples of having occurred in the past.
The only reason Google would ever be interested in what you're torrenting is so they could see what kind of shows, movies and music you consume for targeted advertising. Google has a vested interest in the data they collect for advertising purposes. To release that information in any way would be completely counter productive to their business model as they'd be giving away their primary commodity. |
I agree with your first statement:
> Fibre channel cards are host bus adapters, used for disk and tape storage.
I also agree that they are different than a traditional Network Interface Card, in the sense that they are specifically for data storage. But now I am interested in the semantics of using the term Network Interface Card to describe a Fibre channel card. Could you elaborate on:
>They're not networking adapters.
As I found [this]( definition:
A Network Interface Card (NIC) is a device that allows computers to be joined together in a network, typically a Local Area Network (LAN). Networked computers communicate with each other using a particular protocol or agreed-upon language for transmitting data packets between the different machines or "nodes." The network interface card acts as an interpreter, allowing the machine to both send and receive data on a LAN.
From wikipedia .
In the broadest sense of the definition of Network Interface Controller (or Card), would a fibre channel card fall into this category? I know this is semantics, and fibre channel is traditionally considered an HBA rather than a NIC, just trying to learn me some knowledge. |
But it's a distinction most people don't make. Yes network traffic is often measured in bits by suppliers, but locally - to consumers -, data is generally measured in bytes. That is to say the size of images, videos, songs, text, etc., are often relayed in bytes. When you download , the size of the file is represented in bytes. Download speeds are represented locally, in a browser for instance, in B/s, KB/s, MB/s... Without the prior knowledge that the package being sold, is measured in b/s, Kb/s, Mb/s... it's not that obvious that there are 8 bits per byte, and why that distinction exists in the first place. Can you count to 255 in binary? What power of 2 is 256? 1111 1111(b) is 255(d) in binary. None of this is obvious to the average consumer. Neither is the real reason a 1TB hard drive only has 1.00 trillion bytes (1.00 x 10^12), instead of (2^40) or 1.09 trillion bytes (1.09 * 10^12). This is a very large difference, as evidenced by your "1TB" hard drive having probably 931GbB. No, GiB is not a typo. It's the symbol for Gibibyte. But fractalife, when I look at my hard drive size in explorer, it shows up as GB, and we call them gigabytes. Surely, you must be wrong sir. Well I'm not. From a manufacturer's perspective, the distinction between a GB (gigabyte) and GiB (gibibyte) is quite clear. The prefix 'giga' means 1 trillion. A gigabyte is 1 trillion bytes by this definition. Most well known operating systems use gibibytes, which is 2^30 bytes. Google 2^30, then in another tab, 10^9. Cycle between them, or subtract them to highlight the difference. It's not an obvious difference, and it's very misleading to the average consumer. It's also upsetting when you know the difference. But when we casually tout that we understand the difference and scoff those who don't, they continue to use this practice because there is no demand for them to change it. This type of attitude is as destructive as it is insulting. |
The farther something is from you, the longer it takes for send/receive request/acknowledgement messages to be transmitted and the more potential there is for error and bottlenecks at some point along the way.
You probably happen to live near a CDN (content delivery network) location so you get closer to the ideal. Since not everyone lives near a Steam CDN server and people do things on the internet besides download games, one must make a calculation closer to the lowest common denominator when making statements about how much bandwidth is "possible" and how much you can actually expect.
There are a multitude of techniques that ISPs employ in order to maximize performance, such as caching and providing slightly more bandwidth than you're paying for when network conditions permit. For example, your ISP may allow a large initial burst transmission speed for streaming video, followed by a much slower and more easily sustainable rate once they imagine that the first few seconds have likely been buffered. YouTube itself also has a mechanism to do this in order to save bandwidth, making it easy to confuse the two in that case. This window of greater-than-typical transmission speed often happens to fall exactly within the window that sites like speedtest.net measure. Funny coincidence, that.
Knowing that Steam has a highly-visible download speed statistic but that the downloads aren't latency-sensitive, they likely allocate significantly greater bandwidth to the download while giving other non-bulk packets greater priority - this is why your download speed constantly varies. |
The ping is not only taking into consideration the speed of your internet. The computer at the other end of the ping must process the request and send back an answer. I highly doubt he will be able to get 1ms ping from a server that is not next to him.
But someone with a 1Gb connection can still have the same ping as someone with a 10Mb connection, but the download speed of the 1Gb connection will be far more faster than the 10Mb connection. |
You are partially right. If you are saying that you have a direct line to your ISP that the line has a maximum transfer rate of 5Mpbs, you are correct (and in this case potential throughput = bandwidth). However, that's not what occurs. ISPs will run a line with a large bandwidth to a neighbourhood so that they can service many customers on one larger line.
Bandwidth is not the speed that you are getting from the ISP but rather is the maximum speed of the medium that your data is travelling on. Using your example, if you pay for 5Mbps but only get 3Mbps your potential throughput is 5Mpbs and your actual throughput is 3Mbps. The line that the data is travelling on will be much larger than 5Mbps, say 1Gbps which is the bandwidth. |
Even if this is just a sensational article, I agree that there needs to be a 2-step verification.
About a month and a half ago, I was in Tennessee for two weeks without phone service or internet.
After I got back home, the inbox on my phone's email app exploded. I just thought it was a bunch of Facebook notifications, but once I checked it, it turned out to be a bunch of emails from Apple to let me know:
"Your Apple ID was just used to download Haypi Dragon from the App Store on a computer or device that had not previously been associated with that Apple ID."
Turns out that sometime during my two week stay, my account was hijacked.
From there, I checked the rest of the emails. The account info was changed, my security questions were changed, all of the money in the account was pulled out to buy "Haypi Coins" for the Haypi Dragon app.
It took me four weeks just to finally get everything straightened back out and recover my Apple ID.
But get this: my password was around 16 characters long, and had a mix of letters, numbers, and even symbols. There was no way someone could just guess the password.
I don't understand why Apple can't implement a 2-step verification, or at least some variation of it. There's just too much content that's locked to your account to not have better security measures. |
I beg of you... |
Fuck this shit. They say they do not support people buying fake likes from other services. I quit my facebook avertising campaign for my FB page for my music because all of the likes from the advertising were fake accounts. All of them, save like 10. None of them interacted with the page and upon viewing their profiles it was obvious they were fake. I was amazed at how many likes I was getting once I signed up for the campaign. But then as I started getting skeptical there was a post on reddit with a guy with the same problem (except he spent thousands, FHL). I cancelled the payments that day.
They can fix this by just not charging the campaigns when it is a fake account. Im sure if they dedicated some of those savvy programers to the task they could do it. |
Nope, we have, and still are giving them billions. Part of the problem is that, until recently, the federal requirement was 1.5 mbs, which is pathetic. Also, much of the money is specifically for rural areas that are either not served by regulated telecommunications to the same degree as more populated areas.
On that topic we run into a problem that also goes with your point. Regulated telecom companies, traditionally phone companies like AT&T, CenturyLink, and Verizon, are regulated by the federal government. That means they get federal money in exchange for adhering to federal guidelines. They are generally all descended from the old Bell telephone company and have been split apart, and are mostly reformed under AT&T, which is probably the largest regulated company.
They are forced to provide basic phone service to everyone, which can be a problem. The plant it takes to do this cost a decent amount of money, and they have to provide service. So when you drive through the worst neighborhood in your city, these companies have been forced to provide the neighborhood with 10's or 100's of thousands of dollars worth of phone equipment and cable and labor to comply with federal regulations. They know they will never sell a service here, but they must provide it all the same. In some areas the state Public Utility Commission regulates the amount they are allowed to charge for their service to a degree where they must take 30+ years to recoup the expenditure, which is ludicrous because no one will have a landline in 30 years, but they still must meet the basic requirement.
Non-regulated companies, like most cable companies, and independent phone companies can skip right past these areas, saving tons of money.
So, it is a bit of toss up. |
If some Google Fiber speedtests were included in this, based on speedtests I've seen other people take, GF would score "below" some of these other ISPs, despite having the smallest cost:megabit ratio.
After the summer 2011 report using this same metric, Verizon boasted the fact that it had the highest rank (112%). Cablevision took advantage and followed the next year by keeping the advertised speeds underrated and raised the speeds. |
Sorry Silicon Valley, buzzwords would not have "saved" Blackberry. Samsung can just as easily license certified cryptography libraries for Android, which is why they now have the low-level DoD certification. The secure "work spaces" concept they seem to believe can just be ported to Android is based on a type of partitioning that is impossible in Linux. What little isolation can be done is already handled as well as is reasonable by Samsung and Google. They still would have needed to wrap Android in a system like QNX or some other secure hypervisor to actually create the "secure" version of Android that this presentation describes. Also, I can't even begin to guess why they think the power efficiency model from classic BBOS would somehow "port" to Android...
It probably took a technical lead at QNX a few minutes to explain to high level investors what was wrong with this plan and put this stupidity to rest. At best, this would have been a brief arms race with Samsung before RIM went the way of Motorola. It's this sort of poor comprehension and lack of focus on architecture that keeps Silicon Valley from producing secure software-- it's just not what they do well. |
It got popular and like all popular places it went to shit.
.
edit: yes like reddit didn't want to write a roman since in general it works better when people make the connection themself. Half the post even in serious topics are nowadays attempts at jokes and offtopic nonsense. It didn't start that way and small subreddits still retain that previous quality.
The only difference between those small subreddits and the popular topics is the ammount of people involved - |
He absolutely is overstating it. I am a neuroscientist actually working on understanding how the brain both encodes and processes visual stimuli.
The short end of it is that we really don't have much of a detailed handle on this "simple" part of the cortex. I say simple as vision is one of the easiest cortical functions to study as it is relatively accessible to current technology. We understand what an image is, and have decades of electrophysiology and neuroanatomy work to draw from that have focused on the easy to get to parts of the visual system (retina, LGN, V1, etc).
Though like I say, we still are decades away from very simple neural interfaces that would take the place of say the retina. I know some systems have been trumpeted in the press, but the fact is we still don't really understand how the information is really encoded. That is key. We can build small enough light sensors and powerful enough processing devices, but we can't yet "talk" to neurons. Take my word on it, if we can't properly encode and send visual imagery up the optic nerve we are many, many decades from interfacing technology seamlessly into the higher cortical systems. |
You're not being affected AT ALL by the NSA. The NSA couldn't give a shit less about what any of us boring, innocent, sane, and powerless people are doing. They're not violating your privacy because the system doesn't target you. I support a system that is helping keep potential attacks at bay. Doesn't matter if some automated system is looking through everything I do online as long as its only goal and focus is to strictly keep attackers away.
The truth is, ignoring bullshit conspiracy theores, there are a lot of people out there that despise the US. There are a lot of people out there who are crazy enough, religious enough, rich enough to orchestrate some sort of evil plan to kill Americans. All it takes is for a group of them to go unnoticed for long enough before shit hits the fan, people are killed, and Obama gets blamed for not trying hard enough to kill every terrorist. |
Google doesn't seem to yet grasp the importance of execution versus just pointing me to a series of most popular links not necessarily most relevant to my question.... If I say "make a reservation" then make the reservation, don't give me links to nearby restaurants, hotels and two Indian reservations.
And part of the disconnect may simply be that if they could design a compelling device that would do this, the point of the software would be to sell the hardware.... But since they're terrible at hardware, the point of their software is to sell third party advertising "tailored" to my browsing habits, which doesn't necessarily help me accomplish anything. |
Biomedical engineer here.
Firstly, at the current technological level a true brain computer interface with a large bandwidth is unlikely to be created in an adult human being. Although it does seem possible to replace certain "memory-creating" parts of the brain with circuits (e.g. the hippocampus), thus artificially creating new memories and recording the current ones.
Secondly, if we start with an embryo, a brain computer interface is entirely plausible. Modify the genes so that during nervous system development the axons grow towards an electrode grid with certain bio markets, and then "teach" the central nervous system to use that interface. Probably won't happen in the US, due to our strict patient protection laws, but I can totally see China doing this.
Thirdly, all I see in this comment section is people complaining about google ads. This is ridiculous. Think about the fact that for a PhD student education takes up to 20 years, often time the most productive years from the point of brain development (20-30). You realize how much people can accomplish with this implant? But no, we bitch about google ads and NSA -- and yet I suspect that the very same people who complain also use google daily, have mobile devices that make tracking them a joke, and so on. Don't treat technology as the enemy. |
Are you using any of the enterprise administration tools?
Yes.
> They are by leaps and bounds the easiest tablets to administer out there.
Maybe for a small business that doesn't have much existing infrastructure. Otherwise, you'll find that you're adapting your network around iOS, rather than adapting iOS around the network. Most means of enterprise integration focus on BYOD schemes - i.e. with the assumption that users are using these things for both personal and enterprise use. That's precisely the opposite of what the goal is; these are the organization's devices, and yet Apple doesn't really provide the necessary tools to enforce that ownership.
The only good thing about iPads we've encountered is their Exchange support; in that context, yes, they're easy to manage with ActiveSync, since they actually cooperate with most commands. MDM is about worthless beyond update management, since it can't access a good portion of what we need to access (device location being among them; hell, Apple even admits this [in their own marketing for MDM](
Meanwhile, I can take a x86-based Chromebook or other cheap netbook descendent at a fraction of the cost of an iPad, pop in an enterprise-grade Linux distro like RHEL or SUSE, and tie into whatever enterprise services necessary (thanks to having software that's actually designed to handle such use cases, rather than having such functionality tacked on as an afterthought), plus offer students/employees real keyboards for getting real work done without having to pay extra for Bluetooth keyboards, plus be able to lock down access as much as the organization needs. Hell, even a stock ChromeOS is fine for that cost (Chrome's enterprise management isn't that much better, but it is better nonetheless, since it really does permit full administration, rather than simply connecting the device to a couple of services and calling it a day). |
I thought a VPN would only mask device identity to an ISP, but they could still see or find out what data was sent/recieved, just not what device was used. TOR browser masks what is being sent/recieved, so an ISP would only be able to see that you visited a site, but none of your activities while on the site. An ISP has way more access to your activities than a website or an MPAA attorney, so while a VPN alone will work on them, it won't trick your ISP. Or, that's how I understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Edit; post was too long, |
Why aren't there one ISP that gives people what they want? Great speed, great service, and no spying. I'd easily pay more for a service like that. There's huge demand for this!
Because you can't just open an ISP like you could a convenience store. First, you have to secure a permit with the local government(s) to lay down your infrastructure (good luck). Then, if you get that permit, you have to undertake huge upfront, sunk costs to actually lay down the infrastructure. Then you have to do advertising, customer support, installation, etc.
And all of this is just in the hope that customers switch over to your service. Keep in mind that these privacy/piracy concerns are greatly magnified on Reddit relative to the general population. For most people, they could not care less if access to TPB is blocked by their ISP. It's a lot easier to stick with your current, established ISP (who you might be getting a bundle deal with your phone and/or cable, too) than to take a chance switching to a brand new, unknown ISP. |
This is certainly a good idea, so you don't have the stress to switch emails when you switch ISP. However, it is very likely the government organizations spying on your ISP mailbox will also spy on as many other mail providers as possible. I'm pretty sure they spy on all mayor mail providers like yahoo, msn/hotmail, gmail, etc., simply because it's easy and they'd get a lot of data at once.
Even when you have your own domain and use your own mail server, they could force or infiltrate the hoster to get to secretly read your mails.
On the other hand, if you would host your own mail server at home, it would be huge effort for you and in the end, unless the recipient can make use of PGP, they could still sniff the mail as soon as it leaves your home server. Also, mail servers may refuse your mails because of anti spam measures, if your home server does not meet certain complicated criteria. |
What I don't seem to get about this whole thing is that people seem to think ISPs haven't been throttling all along. Now AT&T just have feigned transparency to allow them carry on doing it without the possibility of a Snowden leak doing irrevocable damage to them.
No, /r/shittyconspiracy hasn't leaked out. I just know from experience that ISPs in my own country, Ireland, are divided down the middle on the topic of throttling. UPC offer 150Mb at signup, maybe even upgrade you to it for free from 50Mb, but YouTube still stops to buffer on 340p and torrents magically stop at 20%. Then there is Eircom. They are far behind in speeds but they are far more consistent in the speeds that they deliver.
It appears I went on a tangent there. |
In the videogame industry, some companies blame piracy when their games don't sell. Most of the time, their games are bad or have issues and that's why they don't sell.
Instead, they use piracy as a scapegoat.
Also, not every person pirating something lives in the US with a stable income. A lot of it happens in third world countries were people are poor and wouldn't be able to afford the media in the first place.
If they are not adjusting their prices accordingly to those places and don't expect to receive income from there, why even mention piracy at all? |
My boyfriend was an engineer. Half of his job was designing patents for his company. One day he came home and said one of his semi-conductor patents was purchased by a major company (like Mitsubishi or something).
So where are we going for dinner, I asked.
Huh? he laughed, then sighed. They don't pay them shit.
Edit: By "don't pay them shit" I mean they don't pay them at all. The patent was purchased for 6 or 7 figures, but the person who designs it gets something like a free ticket to the movies.
Actually, my boyfriend has stated the more successful patents you create the less chance you have of moving up in the company because they like you where you are.
I admire and applaud Tesla in this move. There are a lot of companies around the world who employ entire sections... entire office buildings of people who just design and create patents all day long which are then the official property of the company. |
Invented because of money. If you watch an in market game via Internet, you miss local ads (and national) being run on your stations channel. Ad executives don't care if someone from Boca Raton misses a Ford ad directed at Midwestern folk during a Cubs game. They do care if that person misses a Ford commercial geared for Florida. Because of this, they pay lots of money to MLB for market exclusivity, ensuring local viewers watch the game on their "favorite TV station" and not the net. |
Major League Baseball has an antitrust exemption from Congress, which allows them to benefit in anti-competitive ways that other businesses can't. In other words, MLB is a rent-seeking, self-serving corporation, just like every other business, including ISPs. I'll have sympathy for MLBs fight with the ISPs when it gives up its antirust exemption. |
I completely agree, but I can already see what the argument against this is:
If we pay our representatives who make laws so little, and restrict them so heavily, they become easy targets for 'enemy factions' to bribe into their pocket completely outside governmental review. |
since i am incredible bored I tackled this with the help of Google.
[estimated 106 billion ever to be born](
I am estimating with an average human height of 5 feet. why? because I want to and because I had a little trouble finding world average and then there is how the world has grown taller over time and the 106 billion people starts 50,000 years ago. whatever I am using 5 feet.
94087762.1 miles = 496783383888 feet / 5 ft = 99,356,676,777.6 people.
I think we may be able to make it to the sun if we all stood on top each other (including all the dead people ever).
Let's say you do not like my number of 5 foot tall human. There were too many humans a long time ago that were really short, right? And they change the average. Ok, fair complaint. Lets take 3ft. I think this could be good since the skeletons of the [shortest know first humans were a little over 3 feet tall]( But basically we have always been around 5 foot, just saying.
Anyway, with this extreme taken into place we would need 165,594,461,296 people. Now, yes this number is greater than the estimated people ever to be born but this is the number of people needed if we averaged 3 feet tall. Which I think is a ridiculously small number. |
I shoot in raw with a compact (20mpx) camera. I recently went on a 2 week holiday, and filled 2 32gb cards in 14 days of travelling. Each image is ~45mb, and that's despite Samsung's neat, lossless compression raw files.
I also use the camera for photo-scans. I took 6 of these while travelling. Each scan required 15-30 photos. If I'd been using a full DSLR, that would've ammounted to 4.5-9gb per scan. They take a couple of minutes to complete each.
I had to limit how many scans I did, despite there being heaps of interesting statues and the like. Fortunately (in a sense) my multi-rotor was out of action for the trip, because the scans I do from that require ~100 shots each. |
Well when you think about it, people have been using mechanical attachments or devices on their bodies or person for decades, to 'augment' what they could do. Watches. Glasses (glasses are made to fix or improve your vision, btw. Sunglasses protect.. normally). Smart Phones which can now do so many things.
You tell me I could have a computer-like device straight into my forearm? People will jump into that. You tell me you can have information about what i'm looking at actually appear while I'm looking at it? Count me in!... as soon as you make it looks better. |
I think the issue is, they do have the money to buy the good, but they choose not to because they can get the good for free. I understand the idea that the digital age makes infinite copies of an item possible, but it costs money to create the source item. A person who doesn't buy the product, yet still consumes it, takes their money out of the marketplace. Most importantly, that money cannot go to the people who helped created the content and make it publicly available in the first place. That's the point of IP law, to reward a content creator of some intangible or mass "produceable" good. So, in the end, it does hurt the person who made the thing in the first place.
An exact dollar amount for the economic impact is not an easy thing to come by, but it absolutely isn't small.
Also, theft. |
Exactly. I am so glad there are people who are aware of this. More people need to be aware that THEY are the most valuable asset to their business model- without us there is no business. Protest if you want change. They keep you terrified that you'll lose your job if you, they divide and conquer.
The fact that people who are willing to protest this are labeled as hippies by the media is fucking appalling. It's blatant propaganda. Oh you don't agree with our policies? You must be non-patriotic and an anarchist!
This goes way deeper than downloading. This is just a simple "backdoor" to arresting people who are threatening the system. People who are willing to expose abuse internally will be targeted as mentioned in the article. Basically, if you don't play ball, they've got a big file that states you've been doing naughty things online :)
I mean how do they expect to jail HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of pirates? That's obviously not what this is about. If this law passes the power users will be made examples of; publicly hung so to speak. Life in jail. This is grounds for bullying people into submission for Big Businesses and it's sadistic as fuck... /end rant lol sorry |
Sure it is. The internet as it stands is a level playing field. Start a site, anyone can go to it. Without net neutrality, id have to pay for the right to access netflix, plus pay netflix to deliver service. Or any site. If i dont know about your site, or cant access it freely via the internet (which i already pay for) how else will i find it? Via adverts the owner paid for? That unlevels the playing field. Also net neutrality is a form of free speech, because you arent censoring content. |
It is my firm belief that the USA would be much better off if they instituted campaign donation rules that would destroy super PACs and pretty much any lobbying groups ability to use money to influence the political process.
Simply put, I'd say that simply changing the rules to say that the only ones who can donate to politicians are individuals. Not unions, not PACs, not corporations. The only way for money to go from your wallet to a campaign would be for you as a person to write a cheque. Why? Individuals are the only ones who can vote therefore should be the only ones directly effecting the process. If you are the CEO of a corporation or a homeless person, your vote counts the same. I would also limit the amount an individual can donate, say a maximum of 2000 dollars. Also I'd scrap the whole nonsense of tax refunds for political donations.
Secondly, no group or person not directly working, under a politician (aka part of their campaign team) can make or distribute any materials on behalf of that politician or create or distribute literature designed to influence people to vote for or against that person. This would mean the only person who could speak to voters on behalf of a politician would be the politician himself or someone who works directly under him/her or his or her campaign manager. It would mean fewer distorted messages at the politicians themselves would be directly responsible for what is said on their behalf.
Another no brainer is that no politician can accept any amount of money or goods or services for any reason unless it is in the form of a campaign donation. Also all funds and services given to a politician must ONLY be used to support that politician and their needs during the campaign. Aka he/she can use funds to buy a sandwich while campaigning or whatnot, but the day the campaign ends the money must either be put aside for the next campaign or cross donated to another political candidate for the sole purpose of helping them get elected or it could be refunded in some way. |
The concept of net neutrality dates back further than the DSL era. it is a fundamental principal of the TCP/IP architecture the the way in which data packets are prioritized on saturated connections. It's an engineering rule that is the cornerstone of how the internet works. |
Amazon: Shipping costs are killing them, people are going to start doing flexible shipping (something like Uber) which is much cheaper and faster.
... how is this bad for Amazon?? This seems like exactly what they want. It's like saying that FedEx will be the new Amazon.
Facebook: Instagram is great (but we said that 2 years ago, so I better not be wrong) and FB gets compared to Twitter and Google (although G+ almost never gets mentioned despite this weird looking chart:
Google: "When people are on apps they're less inclined to search on Google" is said without any supporting data whatsoever. I didn't see any other relevant points.
Apple: Is a luxury brand - if anyone can find another luxury brand that has the same level of sales as Apple I'd be shocked. The rest of this was just a mismash of boring brand tropes. |
The transaction is between Comcast, HBO, Comcast, and the customer. The customer pays Comcast who in turn pays HBO who has licensed to Sony.
Comcast probably has a clause in both the contract with HBO and the customer that they reserve the right to allow their authentication to be restricted to certian devices.
So |
I'm so glad there is no way this will continue to get worse if net neutrality is struck down. I mean, this can't be a perfectly good example of how ISP's actively work to stifle competition.
They all really do have the consumer's best interests in mind. |
This isn't really a net neutrality thing. This is a vendor API thing. In order for people to use HBO Go on some devices, the software HBO provides will authenticate the user's HBO subscription through the user's cable company. This requires work on the cable provider's part to create an API which works with their service. Comcast is refusing to do so at this point in time. Now, HBO could probably create a way to authenticate Comcast users which would get around this issue, but they don't seem to be all that interested in doing so right now. |
No, Comcast the Internet Service Provider is not blocking a blessed thing. If you use login credentials from another cable provider or (when it launches) HBO GO's standalone service, HBO Go works just fine on the PS4 if you're on Comcast's network.
Comcast the Cable Provider is refusing to authenticate Comcast customers to view HBO Go on devices that are not authorized by Comcast. Just like you can't just grab a random set-top-box off the internet and get it to work without calling Comcast and getting it provisioned. Comcast the Cable Provider believes that they can treat internet-connected devices just like any other set-top-box: If it's not authorized, you cannot watch content from your cable subscription on it. Whether or not Comcast's interpretation is correct has yet to be seen. But this is not a Net Neutrality issue, because the cable arm of Comcast is not bound by rules that the ISP arm of Comcast is, just like the meat department of your local supermarket is not bound by the same rules as the pharmacy is.
Other providers are providing this service at no cost, but Comcast sees this as an untapped revenue stream. They are using technicalities, loopholes, and semantics. It is a complete dick move. But under the rules for cable providers and ISPS as currently written, their technicalities, loopholes, semantics, and dick moves are all perfectly legal until the FCC or a judge says otherwise. |
Yeah, I think most of the people here don't realize that the new Macbook is the old Macbook Air. The Air is a very specialized machine that's only a good choice for a very specific kind of customer.
This article is certainly negative against this Macbook, but it's not negative against Apple. If you read it, it even says " Go to the nearest Apple store. Marvel at its engineering. And then buy the MacBook Pro. "
The Macbook is for people who travel a lot, have very limited needs and really want the portability and weight of a tablet with the features of a laptop. Oh, and they want a fashion accessory and status symbol. If that's what you're looking for, the Macbook is everything you hoped for.
But as bad as the Macbook is, the Macbook Pro is fucking awesome. I'm a PC guy as well as an avid gamer. I built my PC, I'll never give it up. But I jumped to an MBP as my laptop and fell in love. MBP's are built like tanks and last forever. Also once you get used to MacOSX, it's a fucking awesome laptop OS. |
Ethanol from algae is a greener technology than oil. Plastics from a renewable source, like, say algae is greener than from fossil fuels. Like it or not, we currently use coal fired power plants for the vast majority of our electrical needs, and the oxygen from the algae would allow it to burn more efficiently, and more completely, which would reduce the amount of pollution released.
I will grant you that it is not a perfect solution, but it is much greener than what we are doing now. The goal is to be moving in a more renewable, less polluting direction. If we can make this profitable, it will be adopted quicker, and we will not encounter the resistance green has always encountered.
In a perfect world, we would have solar and wind produced from generators that did not use exotic materials and could be made everywhere. In a more realistic world, we will have regulations that will spur investment in greener technology. Hopefully we can get a fusion plant up and running in the next 20 years. In the mean time we will have things like this, Toshibas "micro-nuclear" reactors; more hydro, wind, and solar; and bio-diesel, bio-butanol, and ethanol. We will be advancing battery technology better as well as fuel cell reactors.
While the companies of today are trying to be more green, they will not do so without regulation and financial incentive. It is much better, in my opinion, to have technology which is more profitable to them by itself, so they do not need the subsidies.
If we wait for the perfect technology, which is profitable and completely green, we will not make the changes we need to make today. We got into the fix with food based ethanol without worrying about profit, because subsidies took care of that. All we did is drive the cost of food up and waste a lot of money that would have been invested is truly green technology.
They are not taking money that they would have invested on perfectly green technology and spending it on this. They are taking money that they would spend on making the current technology more efficient, and getting a stable supply of hydrocarbons for their plastics in the meantime. |
Comcast speeds in the Seattle area are usually 6/2 or 15/5. however, you're unlikely to get more than a quarter of that. the advertise 50Mbps but I'm pretty sure they dont have DOCSIS3 in this region which means the theoretical limit is 42Mbps.
Verizon is incredible if you can get FIOS. they've run it pretty heavily over most of the suburbs, but there are still pockets where it doesnt exist. for about $50 you can get 20/5 and you WILL pull 20 down. I have some issues getting the full 5Mbps up, usually maxing at 2.5Mbps. it could be the shitty VZN router or it could be the fact that Verizon doesnt like me maxing out my upstream 75% of the time... |
200 MORE for OSX, so I spent $120 for the ultimate edition of windows 7 so that I could do home theatre stuff. So I am supposed to spend $200 more for OSX?
Like I said, I am a fanboy, I know the advantages. I own a mac laptop. I have an iPhone. I get the appeal, etc. I just can't justify the extra $200 premium when Apple could easily be competitive in that space. |
I care more about specs than the form factor
You are not the target audience for Apple. Get the fuck over it already. Seriously, I don't know how many times this needs to be said before it sinks in for people like you.
Additionally... a 27" Core i7 iMac is no less an amazing machine than the "tower" people have always been demanding. The "tower" would cost just as much, and with the iMac, you get a gorgeous screen to go with it. |
When you go on the Internet, whether a website, or IM, or Email, or IRC or anything like that, you are using your computer (client) to access a server (an application that gives you data that you requested). So for example, reddit stores all your comments and upvotes and downvotes and saved links and preferences, etc (obviously). AIM does too...when you IM someone, it first has to go through a third party server, and then to the recipient.
Facebook, of course, stores all the content that you post, and gives it to advertisers, who place appropriate advertisements on your wall. With Diaspora, according to my understanding, none of the content that you post on your or anyone else's will be served in some database that you don't control. You host all of the content on your computers, and you decide who sees it (your friends). It's similar to P2P, basically. Your computer is both a client and a server. It's a client because it gets info from other computers, and a server because it also serves it too.
Also, all the information will be heavily encrypted, so it will be harder to be able to steal your information. |
Hahahaahahahaah, yeah, totally bro.
Actually, no. I'll keep this simple since you appear to be a simple man.
Steps involved in making oil move a car:
Drill some big ass hole -> ship it to a refinery -> burn a shitload of energy to make parts of it useful, throw the rest out -> ship/truck it to a gas station -> have it burn in a shitty variable rpm IC engine that has an efficiency in the low teens assuming you drive like you're literally a billion years old.
Steps involved in making coal move a car:
dig coal -> put it on highly energy efficient train -> burn that shit in the most efficient boilers known to man, use waste heat to, i don't know, heat something. basically, relatively little energy wasted -> send it through the grid(lose a couple % in conversions here, but still a fraction of the energy wasted by trucking fuel to a gas station) -> charge a battery that sends the electricity to the most efficient engine known to man |
I was one of the early adopters of Netflix back in 2000 via a promo deal I got when I purchased a DVD player (5 free crappy DVDs and a discount toward rental). I abandoned it in 2001-2002 after the promo ended, and finally signed up in 2003. I have been happy with their service, but their online streaming content is pretty sparse compared to the DVD and Blu-Ray content. Not to mention all other limitations (lack of 5.1 support, lack of 1080p support, lack of sub-titles etc.) that other redditors have mentioned.
The minute they stop DVDs and Blu-Rays is when I will perhaps leave Netflix. It will be a sad day when that happens, but until then rock on Netflix! I watch a lot of obscure films and so far Netflix is the only way to get them. |
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